The present invention relates to the electronic display of television program guide information on a screen. More specifically, the invention relates to a method of organizing and displaying program information in such a manner as to allow for optimal use of the area available on the television screen.
Television programs are distributed to viewers by a variety of broadcasting methods. These methods include traditional analog broadcast television, the upcoming digital broadcast television, cable television (both analog and digital), satellite broadcasting (both analog and digital), as well as other methods. These methods allow channels to be multiplexed and transmitted over a common transmission medium. Because television broadcasting systems can have hundreds of channels, there must be some mechanism for informing the viewer of the content available on the various channels. Electronic television program guides have proven to be an effective means for providing this information.
Program guides for television programming are known in the art. A common method for obtaining television programming information is by consulting paper television programming guides or schedules. This method of disseminating information, however, has limitations. A paper guide may become obsolete or a schedule may change, rendering the paper copy useless. Additionally, the paper schedule may easily be lost.
Electronic program guides have been proposed to alleviate some of the limitations of paper. One example is a cable system that provides a continuous feed of guide information to a dedicated television channel. The channel displays continuous program listings. The continuous nature of the link allows the guide to be updated and to reflect current scheduling information. An alternate method of providing guide content is to send it, along with program content, via satellite transmissions to receiving stations.
Previous program guides have been burdened with limitations. Prior television electronic program guides are based around the use of a scheduling grid. This grid typically involves one axis which corresponds to time and another axis which corresponds to transmission channels. At the intersection of each channel and time slot is a xe2x80x9ccellxe2x80x9d which typically displays the title of the program that is being shown on that channel at that time. The problem with this grid-type display format is that when the number of channels available to the user is more than 15 to 20, it becomes necessary for the viewer to scroll further through the listings, bringing up screen after screen of possible programs and channels. Additionally, if the viewer wishes to look ahead in the schedule, the viewer must scroll again to another section of the grid in order to get a complete viewing of programs being broadcast later in the day, week, etc.
The number of television channels and programming alternatives available to the consumer has been increasing dramatically. Under the current grid format, an expanding number of channels are being pushed onto a single screen. The result is that the text of the display becomes so small as to become difficult to read, or the titles and descriptions of the programs become truncated so as to provide very little information to the viewer. Due to the overwhelming amount of information and options, it is necessary to have a method of displaying and sorting all the available programming information for the television viewer in an efficient manner.
Collectively, prior electronic program guide systems are frustrating to the viewer because they do not give the viewer an aesthetically pleasing and intuitive way to provide information. Adding a description of the program for each active cell in the grid, or requiring the viewer to go through a hierarchy of screens of categories has not alleviated the problem of giving the viewer an intuitive and informative method of determining what programming is available.
The present invention provides an alternative for presenting television programming information. The information is displayed in a xe2x80x9cnarrativexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cmagazinexe2x80x9d type format and may include hyper-links. Using this method, narrative text is presented to the viewer, giving a description of programs and hyper-links which enable switching directly to described programs, or switching to obtain additional information about particular programs. In one embodiment, the viewer is given display choices via hyper-links that are interspersed in the text.
The use of narrative text in the electronic program guide presents the viewer with an intuitive and informative display. Furthermore, the viewer can make programming selections quickly and receive information about desired program choices immediately using uncomplicated navigational commands such as hyper-links.
According to one aspect, a device for displaying program information in an on-screen video display includes a tuner adapted to receive electronic program guide data, a memory operatively coupled to the tuner and adapted to store the electronic program guide data and a converter operatively coupled to the memory and the tuner, the converter being adapted to convert the electronic program guide data into an on-screen video display, wherein the on-screen video display comprises a hyper-link associated with information for display. The device further includes a user interface receiver adapted to receive a user command to select the hyper-link and a controller communicatively coupled to the user interface receiver, the converter and the tuner. The controller is adapted to receive the user command and to control the converter and the tuner to display the information associated with the hyper-link. The on-screen video display may be narrative text written, in a story-like format having paragraphs and organizational categories that provide a first-level organization that defines overall content of the on-screen video display and a second-level organization that defines the content of the paragraphs of the narrative text.
In other embodiments, the information associated with the hyper-links may be television content or additional electronic program guide data. The additional program guide data may include program or actor information about a program to be broadcast, information defining and describing a program channel or links to operating menus. The organizational categories may include colors that distinguish the organizational categories. The organizational categories may also provide additional levels of organization with respect to the on-screen video display.
Additionally, the device may include a storage device operatively coupled to the converter and which is adapted to record television content. The on-screen video display may further include a recording menu hyper-link that provides a link to a menu for recording television content and for controlling the storage device.
Further, the device may include a remote control adapted to generate a user command, wherein the remote control includes dedicated buttons to direct the controller to perform an operational function. Operational functions may include signaling a recording device to record television content, signaling the tuner to receive television content and setting a reminder in the memory to display specified television content when the specified television content is received by the tuner.
According to a second aspect, a method of displaying program information in an on-screen video display includes the steps of receiving electronic program guide data, storing the electronic program guide data and converting the electronic program guide data into an on-screen video display, wherein the on-screen video display includes a hyper-link associated with information for display and wherein the on-screen video display includes narrative text written in a story-like format having paragraphs. The method may also include the steps of receiving a user command to select the hyper-link and displaying the information associated with the hyper-link.
According to a third aspect, a system for distributing and processing data representative of an electronic program guide includes a program guide data transmitting system adapted to receive and process schedule feeds to produce program guide data and to broadcast the program guide data and a receiver station adapted to receive the broadcast of the program guide data from the program guide data transmitting system. In such an embodiment, the receiver station includes a tuner adapted to receive the program guide data and a memory operatively coupled to the tuner which stores the program guide data. The receiver station further includes a converter operatively coupled to the memory and the tuner, the converter being adapted to convert the program guide data into an on-screen video display, wherein the on-screen video display comprises a hyper-link associated with information for display and wherein the on-screen video display may be narrative text written in a story-like format having paragraphs. The receiver station also includes a user interface receiver adapted to receive a user command to select the hyper-link and a controller communicatively coupled to the user interface receiver and the tuner, the controller being adapted to receive the user command and to control the tuner to display the information associated with the hyper-link.
According to a fourth aspect, a method of creating an electronic program guide includes the steps of storing program guide data and selecting a first set of data from the stored program guide data including at least one program title, at least one time of transmission and at least one subject matter description. The method further includes the steps of arranging the first set of data into an on-screen video display having a hyper-link that causes information associated with the hyper-link to be displayed when the hyper-link is selected and displaying the on-screen video display, wherein the on-screen video display may include narrative text written in a story-like format having paragraphs.
According to a fifth aspect, a method of creating an electronic program guide includes the steps of storing program guide data, selecting a first set of data from the stored program guide data including at least one program title, at least one time of transmission and at least one subject matter description, arranging the first set of data into an on-screen video display including narrative text written in a story-like format and displaying the on-screen video display.